Sandy "Angry" Salt

Sunday, July 19, 2015

As I warned yesterday, the reason for the terrorist's actions was depression and not radical Islam, so says his Muslim family. The MSM is searching for any reason other than the one and only reason for the attack. We need to force all "peace loving" Muslims to call out the radicals and openly refute calls for violence. We should not be forced to accept the BS without question from "moderate Muslims". If you are truly peace loving then help root out the radicals here and across the globe.

Ask the citizens in Western Iraq, what was it like when you got your wish for radical Islam leadership. That last only a few months and they turned to America for arms to root out the radicals. That is the truth of how we turned the tide in the War in Iraq. It is this that encourages me that maybe it could be just a misguided few, but I need to see a lot more results before I am willing to believe that Islam is what it claims.

I am no less angry today, but I am always happy to see that Saudi Arabia is trying to clean up the mess they created and funded. 400 terrorist is a drop in the ocean of radical Islam, but it is a start. I am feeling very isolationist, which is both American and unAmerican. If you are at war, which we are, you don't throw open the boarders to the enemy and hope for the best.

Saturday, July 18, 2015

As a current resident of Chattanooga, I am having a very angry day and I am not sure how let it out. As you might have seen on the national news, we recently had Muslim terrorist shoot and kill five people here. Having served in Iraq and seeing the utter misery that the people live in, I was forgiving of their ignorance of America and why they saw us as the enemy. This POS that killed these military personnel came from Kuwait and lived here for years, so it is tough to provide any quarter to this type of person. I was extremely happy to know that the police put this animal down and that we won't have to listen to any BS from his lawyer about him being misguided or tricked.

I have so many angry feelings toward the Muslim population in this country that I know are unfair and could be considered stereotyping, but since they refuse to denounce Muslim terrorism I have zero use for them. If I am to be a true American and accepting of the melting pot meme, then how do I reconcile these repeated acts of pure evil from a single group of people against the citizens of America. It isn't like it has been a single act or a limited sect of the group, but it has been multiple acts from many different places. But, they all have two things in common, they are carried out by Muslim and directed at innocent people.

I am having strong feelings of retribution and hatred for this group of people. I am tired of the media outpouring of sympathy for the perpetrators. Saying it is a limited group, they are just misunderstood and better ideas will solve this problem. It a requirement of the Muslim religion to kill non-believers if they don't convert, so what is there to misunderstand. I have had enough of the BS. Many may considered this hate speech for voicing my personal feelings, but I have seen the pain and death up close and am fed up with one group's ability to cause death to innocent people.

And why would my speech anymore hateful than theirs? The funny thing is that this terrorist religion kills more of its own believers than any outside group does, but they refuse to acknowledge this fact. They continue promote the killing of innocents and to seek opportunities to kill Americans and wipe Israel from the face of the Earth. Sounds pretty hateful and not just one person's feelings? Does this sound like a religion of peace? Does this sound like people that can be reasoned with? Enough is enough.

I am angry and frustrated. I don't know the answer, but I do know that I am done with allowing a small group to cow us with the false memes of religious freedom and political correctness. If you are not a terrorist, then get your house in order and put down the rabid dogs in your yard.

Let me have it, how I am not suppose to say these things and that I am wrong.

Friday, February 27, 2015

I hate the thought of not communicating with you all for so long, but I just have been so very busy for a long time. I just don't have the hours in the day necessary to read, digest and post on the day's events. I hate the idea of closing the blog down, but it also seems a shame to keep it up and unused.

I have enjoyed the relationships created and nurtured here with all the other warriors for the American Dream. I just wish I had the time to spend with you. I should have shut things down a couple years back when I got my new job, but I always thought that at some point I would be able to get back to posting.

That just hasn't happened and in recent months things have accelerated and I have even less time to keep up with things. I will miss you all. God Bless America and keep striving for the American Dream.

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Robert Heinlein described & stated it better than
any other I am aware. It's a long read, but I am placing an excerpt from Starship Troopers that sums up my views
on the subject (and of necessity a few others).

"I found myself mulling over a discussion in our
class in History and Moral Philosophy. Mr. Dubois was talking about the
disorders that preceded the breakup of the North American republic, back in the
20th century. According to him, there was a time just before they went down the
drain when such crimes as murder were as common as dogfights. The Terror had
not been just in North America -- Russia and the British Isles had it, too, as
well as other places. Nevertheless, it reached its peak in North America
shortly before things went to pieces.

"Law-abiding people," Dubois had told us, "hardly dared go into
a public park at night. To do so was to risk attack by wolf packs of children,
armed with chains, knives, home-made guns, bludgeons ... to be hurt at least,
robbed most certainly, injured for life probably -- or even killed. This went
on for years, right up to the war between the Russo-Anglo-American Alliance and
the Chinese Hegemony. Murder, drug addiction, larceny, assault, and vandalism
were commonplace. Nor were parks the only places -- these things happened also
on the streets in daylight, on school grounds, even inside school buildings.
But parks were so notoriously unsafe that honest people stayed clear of them after
dark."

I had tried to imagine such things happening in our schools, I simply could not.
Nor in our parks. A park was a place for fun, not for getting hurt. As for being
killed in one --

"Mr. Dubois, didn't they have police? Or courts?"

"They had many more police than we have. In addition, more courts. All
overworked."

"I guess I don't get it." If a boy in our city had done anything half
that bad ... well, he and his father would have been flogged side by side. But
such things just did not happen.

Mr. Dubois then demanded of me, "Define a 'juvenile delinquent.'"

"Uh, one of those kids -- the ones who used to beat up people."

"Wrong."

"Huh? But the book said -- "

"My apologies. Your textbook does so state. But calling a tail a leg does
not make the name fit. 'Juvenile delinquent' is a contradiction in terms, one that
gives a clue to their problem and their failure to solve it. Have you ever
raised a puppy?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did you housebreak him?"

"Err ... yes, sir. Eventually." My slowness in this caused my mother
to rule that dogs must stay out of the house.

"Ah, yes. When your puppy made mistakes, were you angry?"

"What? Why, he didn't know any better; he was just a puppy."

"What did you do?"

"Why, I scolded him and rubbed his nose in it and paddled him."

"Surely he could not understand your words?"

"No, but he could tell I was sore at him!"

"But you just said that you were not angry."

Mr. Dubois had an infuriating way of getting a person mixed up, "No, but I
had to make him think I was. He had to learn, didn't he?"

"Conceded. But, having made it clear to him that you disapproved, how
could you be so cruel as to spank him as well? You said the poor beastie did
not know that he was doing wrong. Yet you inflicted pain. Justify yourself! Or
are you a sadist?"

I did not then know what a sadist was -- but I know pups. "Mr. Dubois, you
have to! You scold him so that he knows he is in trouble, you rub his nose in
it so that he will know what trouble you mean, you paddle him so that he darn
well will not do it again -- and you have to do it right away! It does not do a
bit of good to punish him later; you will just confuse him. Even so, he will
not learn from one lesson, so you watch and catch him again and paddle him
still harder. Soon he learns. But it's a waste of breath just to scold
him." Then I added, "I guess you've never raised pups."

"Many. I am raising a dachshund now -- by your methods. Let us get back to
those juvenile criminals. The most vicious averaged somewhat younger than you
here in this class ...and they often started their lawless careers much
younger. Let us never forget that puppy. These children were often caught;
police arrested batches each day. Were they scolded? Yes, often scathingly.
Were their noses rubbed in it? Rarely. Newspapers and officials usually kept
their names secret -- in many places, this was the law for criminals under
eighteen. Were they spanked? Indeed not! Many had never been spanked even as
small children; there was a widespread belief that spanking, or any punishment
involving pain, did a child permanent psychic damage."

(I had reflected that my father must never have heard of that theory.)

"Corporal punishment in schools was forbidden by law," he had gone
on. "Flogging was lawful as sentence of court only in one small province,
Delaware, and there only for a few crimes and was rarely invoked; it was
regarded as 'cruel and unusual punishment.'" Dubois had mused aloud,
"I do not understand objections to 'cruel and unusual' punishment. While a
judge should be benevolent in purpose, his awards should cause the criminal to
suffer, else there is no punishment -- and pain is the basic mechanism built
into us by millions of years of evolution, which safeguards us by warning when
something threatens our survival. Why should society refuse to use such a
highly perfected survival mechanism? However, that period was loaded with
pre-scientific pseudo-psychological nonsense.

"As for 'unusual,' punishment must be unusual or it serves no
purpose." He then pointed his stump at another boy. "What would
happen if a puppy were spanked every hour?"

"Uh ... probably drive him crazy!"

"Probably. It certainly will not teach him anything. How long has it been
since the principal of this school last had to switch a pupil?"

"Uh, I'm not sure. About two years. The kid that swiped --"

"Never mind. Long enough. It means that such punishment is so unusual as
to be significant, to deter, and to instruct. Back to these young criminals --
They probably were not spanked as babies; they certainly were not flogged for
their crimes. The usual sentence was for a first offence, a warning -- a
scolding, often without trial. After several offenses, a sentence of
confinement but with sentence suspended and the youngster placed on probation.
A boy might be arrested may times and convicted several times before he was
punished -- and then it would be merely confinement, with others like him from
whom he learned habits that are still more criminal. If he kept out of major
trouble while confined, he could usually evade most of even that mild
punishment, be given probation -- 'paroled' in the jargon of the times.

"This incredible sequence could go on for years while his crimes increased
in frequency and viciousness, with no punishment whatever save rare
dull-but-comfortable confinements. Then suddenly, usually by law on his
eighteenth birthday, this so-called 'juvenile delinquent' becomes an adult
criminal -- and sometimes wound up in only weeks or months in a death cell
awaiting execution for murder."

He had singled me out again. "Suppose you merely scolded your puppy, never
punished him, let him go on making messes in the house ... and occasionally
locked him up in an outbuilding but soon let him back into the house with a
warning not to do it again. Then one day you notice that he is now a grown dog
and still not housebroken -- whereupon you whip out a gun and shoot him dead.
Comment, please?"

"Why ... that's the craziest way to raise a dog I ever heard of!"

"I agree. On the other hand, a child. Whose fault would it be?"

"Uh ... why, mine, I guess."

"Again I agree. But I'm not guessing."

"Mr. Dubois," a girl blurted out, "but why? Why didn't they
spank little kids when they needed it and use a good dose of the strap on any
older ones who deserved it -- the sort of lesson they would not forget! I mean
ones who did things really bad. Why not?"

"I don't know," he had answered grimly, "except that the
time-tested method of instilling social virtue and respect for law in the minds
of the young did not appeal to a pre-scientific pseudo-professional class who
called themselves 'social workers' or sometimes 'child psychologists.' It was
too simple for them, apparently, since anybody could do it, using only the
patience and firmness needed in training a puppy. I have sometimes wondered if
they cherished a vested interest in disorder -- but that is unlikely; adults
almost always act from conscious 'highest motives' no matter what their
behavior."

"But -- good heavens!" the girl answered. "I didn't like being
spanked any more than any kid does, but when I needed it, my mama delivered.
The only time I ever got a switching in school I got another one when I got
home -- and that was years and years ago. I do not ever expect to be hauled up
in front of a judge and sentenced to a flogging; you behave yourself and such
things do not happen. I don't see anything wrong with our system; it's a lot
better than not being able to walk outdoors for fear of your life -- why that's
horrible!"

"I agree. Young lady, the tragic wrongness of what those well-meaning
people did, contrasted with what they thought they were doing, goes very deep.
They had no scientific theory of morals. They did have a theory of morals and
they tried to live by it (I should not have sneered at their motives), but
their theory was wrong -- half of it fuzzyheaded wishful thinking, half of it
rationalized charlatanry. The more earnest they were, the farther it led them
astray. You see, they assumed that Man had a moral instinct."

"Sir? I thought -- But he does! I have."

"No, my dear, you have a cultivated conscience, a most carefully trained
one. Man has no moral instinct. He is not born with moral sense. You were not
born with it, I was not -- and a puppy has none. We acquire moral sense, when we
do, through training, experience, and hard sweat of the mind. These unfortunate
juvenile criminals were born with none, even as you and I, and they had no
chance to acquire any; their experiences did not permit it. What is 'moral
sense'? It is an elaboration of the instinct to survive. The instinct to
survive is human nature itself, and every aspect of our personalities derives
from it. Anything that conflicts with the survival instinct acts eventually to
eliminate the individual and thereby fails to show up in future generations.
This truth is mathematically demonstrable, everywhere verifiable; it is the
single eternal imperative controlling everything we do.

"But the instinct to survive," he had gone on, "can be
cultivated into motivations more subtle and much more complex than the blind,
brute urge of the individual to stay alive. Young lady, what you miscalled your
'moral instinct' was the instilling in you by your elders of the truth that
survival could have stronger imperatives than that of your own personal
survival. Survival of your family, for example. Of your children, when you have
them. Of your nation, if you struggle that high up the scale. And so on up. A
scientifically verifiable theory of morals must be rooted in the individual's
instinct to survive -- and nowhere else! -- And must correctly describe the
hierarchy of survival, note the motivations at each level, and resolve all
conflicts.

"We have such a theory now; we can solve any moral problem, on any level.
Self-interest, love of family, duty to country, responsibility toward the human
race -- we are even developing an exact ethic for extra-human relations. But
all moral problems can be illustrated by one misquotation: 'Greater love hath
no man than a mother cat dying to defend her kittens.' Once you understand the
problem facing that cat and how she solved it, you will then be ready to
examine yourself and learn how high up the moral ladder you are capable of
climbing.

"These juvenile criminals hit a low level. Born with only the instinct for
survival, the highest morality they achieved was a shaky loyalty to a peer
group, a street gang. But the do-gooders attempted to 'appeal to their better
natures,' to 'reach them,' to 'spark their moral sense.' Tosh! They had no
'better natures'; experience taught them that what they were doing was the way
to survive. The puppy never got his spanking; therefore, what he did with
pleasure and success must be 'moral.'

"The basis of all morality is duty, a concept with the same relation to
group that self-interest has to individual. Nobody preached duty to these kids
in a way they could understand -- that is, with a spanking. But the society
they were in told them endlessly about their 'rights.'

"The results should have been predictable, since a human being has no
natural rights of any nature."

Mr. Dubois had paused. Somebody took the bait. "Sir? How about 'life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'?"

"Ah, yes, the 'unalienable rights.' Each year someone quotes that
magnificent poetry. Life? What 'right' to life has a man who is drowning in the
Pacific? The ocean will not hearken his cries. What 'right' to life has a man
who must die if he is to save his children? If the chooses to save his own
life, does he do so as a matter of 'right'? If two men are starving and
cannibalism is the only alternative to death, which man is right is
'unalienable'? In addition, is it 'right'? As to liberty, the heroes who signed
the great document pledged themselves to buy liberty with their lives. Liberty
is never unalienable; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of patriots
or it always vanishes. Of all the so-called natural human rights that have ever
been invented, liberty is the least likely to be cheap and is never free of
cost.

"The third 'right' -- the 'pursuit of happiness'? It is indeed unalienable
but it is not a right; it is simply a universal condition, which tyrants cannot
take away, nor patriots restore. Cast me into a dungeon, burn me at the stake,
crown me king of kings, I can 'pursue happiness' as long as my brain lives --
but neither gods nor saints, wise men nor subtle drugs, can insure that I will
catch it."

Mr. Dubois then turned to me. "I told you that 'juvenile delinquent' is a
contradiction in terms. ’Delinquent' means 'failing in duty.' But duty is an
adult virtue -- indeed a juvenile becomes an adult when, and only when, he
acquires a knowledge of duty and embraces it as dearer than the self-love he
was born with. There never was, there cannot be, a 'juvenile delinquent.' But
for every juvenile criminal there do always one or more adult delinquents --
people of mature years, who do not know either their duty, or who do know it
and fail.

"And that was the soft spot which destroyed what was in many ways an
admirable culture. The junior hoodlums who roamed their streets were symptoms
of a greater sickness; their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified
their mythology of 'rights' ... and lost track of their duties. No nation, so
constituted, can endure."

Sunday, August 24, 2014

I was a Soldier or I am a
Veteran: That is the way it is, what we were and certainly WHAT we ARE.

We put it, simply, without
any swagger, without any brag, in those four plain words.We speak them softly, just
to ourselves. Others may have forgotten they are a manifesto to humankind;
speak those four words anywhere in the world, anywhere, and many who hear will
recognize their meaning.

They are a pledge. A pledge
that stems from a document that said, “I solemnly swear”, “to protect and
defend” and goes on from there, and from a Flag called “Old Glory”.Listen, and you can hear the
voices echoing through them, words that sprang white-hot from bloody lips,
shouts of “medic&#8 221; whispers of “Oh God!” forceful words of “Follow
Me”. If you cannot hear them, you were not, if you can you are.

“Don’t give up the ship!
Fight her until she dies… Damn the torpedoes! Go ahead! . . . Do you want to
live forever? . . . Don’t cheer, boys; the poor devils are dying.”
Laughing words, and words cold as January ice, words that when spoken, were meant,
“Wait till you see the whites of their eyes”. The echoes of I was a Soldier.
Say what you mean & mean what you say!

You can hear the slow
cadences at Gettysburg, or Arlington honoring not a man, but a Soldier, perhaps
forgotten by his nation, his family…Oh! Those Broken Promises, VA claims,
Homelessness, Divorces. You can hear those echoes as you have a beer at the
“Post”, walk in a parade, go to The Wall, visit a VA hospital, hear the mournful
sounds of Taps, or gaze upon the white crosses, or tall white stones, row upon
row. However, they are not just words; they are a way of life, a pattern of
living, or a way of dying.

They made the evening, with
another day’s work done - supper with the wife and kids. A Beer with friends; and
no Gestapo snooping at the door and threatening to kick your teeth in. They
gave you the right to choose who shall run our government for us, the right to
a secret vote that counts just as much as the next fellow is in the final tally.
In addition, the obligation to use that right, and guard it and keep it clean. They
prove the right to hope, to dream, to pray, and the obligation to serve. These
are just some of the meanings of those four words, meanings we do not often
stop to tally up or even list.

Only in the stillness of a
moonless night or in the quiet of a Sunday afternoon, or in the thin dawn of a
new day, when our world is close about us, Do they rise up in our memories and
stir in our sentient hearts. In addition, we are remembering family & battle
buddies, who were at Iwo Jima, Wake Island, and Bataan, Inchon, and Chu Lai,
Knox and Benning, Great Lakes and Paris Island, Travis and Chanute, Bagdad,
Kabul, Kuwait City, and many other places long forgotten by our civilian
friends.

They are plain words, those
four. Simple words. You could carve them on stone; you could carve them on the
mountain ranges. You could sing them, to the tune of “Yankee Doodle.” However,
you need not. You need not do any of those things, for those words are graven
in the hearts of Veterans, they are familiar to 24,000,000 tongues, every sound
and every syllable. If you must write them, put them on my Stone.

However, when you speak
them, speak them softly, proudly, I will hear you, for I too, I was a Soldier,
I AM A VETERAN.

Friday, August 1, 2014

What are the
chances of a second revolution/civil war in America? Could things like The
Occupy Movement, The Tea Party Movement, and other movements of this type lead
to a second revolution/civil war in the United States?

Examine the last 4-5 years in Bosnia: it is possible.

The Bosnian war happened because the Yugoslavian Army became
predominantly a single ethnicity. When that ethnicity came to power, it brought
together the perfect storm: corrupt government + willing military = genocide. I
would argue that if the military unified around a single issue & the government
opposed that issue, the military would refuse to back the government.
Government program/policy - willing military = civil war.

We have seen this play out in the Middle East where the
commanding general of the military ends up opposed to the sitting ruler. The
General then attempts to wrest power from the government or the military
declares military rule. It is a mistake to believe that the population needs to
mobilize in any kind of a large scale. In most Civil Wars, including our own right
through what is happening right now in Syria, much of the population is passive
and is herded around or used for human shields. Yugoslavia was a well-off,
modern nation before the war. In 1984, they hosted the Winter Olympics in
Sarajevo. Fast-forward 8 years later, Sarajevo was under siege.

There is a tremendous amount of rhetoric bantered about in
our country full of utterly false analogies and hyperbolic claims that seem
intended less to promote educated debate than to elicit anger and distrust. We
are the most connected generation ever, but it seems instead of people using
that to gather information, individuals use it to spread propaganda. The type of
propaganda that claims those who disagree are "un-American" or worse,
less than human. This happens from all sides, all ideologies and the vitriol is
increasing. Considering all of this, I am not able to rule out that Civil War
is impossible here.

I do not think our divide would be ethnic, but potentially
& most likely cultural. When you really look closely, often Civil Wars
erupt over "way of life" issues. Most religious wars fundamentally
break down to - I do not want to live the way you want to tell me to live, I
would rather choose my own path.

I am reluctant to give this example because I sense it will avulse
the discussion off topic, but gun rights are a potential powder keg. The
Pro-Gun lobby says that you should fight gun registration because "the
government" will use the registry to round up all of the guns. Well, who is
tasked to round up the guns? Even if somehow congress managed to change the
Constitution to make it legal, that act alone would be the break point for a
number of States and I venture to believe the mass majority of States if not
EVERY State would pitch a fit. Would the federal government continue to press
the policy? How? Quite literally, and with what Army?

Many people believe that State's rights have been trampled,
if not bulldozed and the federal government has become bloated, too large and omnipotent.
Some people believe that if government attempts to round up personal weapons
that would be the Stamp Act of our modern times, maybe not sufficient in and of
itself, but more of a "last straw."

One of the primary catalysts to the Revolutionary war, and a
contributing factor in the Civil War, was taxes. With the ever increasing tax
burden being placed on the populace, and the loopholes that the wealthy and
corporations are able to exploit to avoid paying taxes, you have to wonder at
what point will the citizens decide that enough is enough.

You also have to take into account the political environment
right now. Our elected representatives are becoming more out of touch with
their constituents, and the lives that they lead. One case in point, a recent
interview with Hillary Clinton, where she revealed she has not driven a car
since 1996. That is extremely unusual for the average citizen unless there is a
mitigating medical condition that prevents driving. Politicians are now more
concerned with making risk averse decisions that will ensure their reelection,
rather than make the tougher choices to better serve the country as a whole.
Our current Commander in Chief flaunts the fact that he has, and will continue
to circumvent the legislative process by signing Executive Orders, changing
laws without congressional approval. Of course, we have to add in the numerous
wealthy individuals who believe they can purchase legislature, and influence
the government by promising or denying "donations".

Lastly, there are constant assaults to the Constitutional
rights of the average citizen. No longer do we have a reasonable expectation of
privacy; nearly all of our electronic communications are intercepted, including
our web usage statistics, and at times even our telephone conversations as
evidenced by the recent NSA scandal. Freedom from illegal search and seizure is
blown out of the water by ‘law enforcement’ departments on a daily basis that
most often ends with a very bad outcome for someone. In addition, there is everyone's
favorite hot topic of the moment, the right to keep and bear arms. California
has already begun confiscation efforts, passed laws that make it near
impossible for a law-abiding citizen to own a firearm, and that is just one
example.

Thomas Jefferson stated, "The tree of liberty must be
refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants". This
particular saying is becoming a battle cry of sorts to those who desire change,
as much as the Gadsden Flag is becoming their banner. With everything that we
are forced to endure as citizens, we have to wonder how much more will go
unopposed before someone makes that first move toward a new civil war. All it
will sadly take is one voice, screaming loud enough, to start the ball in
motion.